GOP blocks recess appointments

President Barack Obama has been under immense pressure from the left to install Richard Cordray as head of a new consumer watchdog agency as soon as the Senate closes its doors for the holidays.

He won’t be able to.

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called on the White House for assurances not to make recess appointments during the holiday break. But the White House did not make that promise, Republican aides say, and now parliamentary maneuvering will prevent the president from circumventing the Senate’s confirmation process during the five-week recess.

At the end of a rare Saturday session, the Senate’s last day of official business for the year, McConnell blocked an effort by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to confirm more than 50 executive and judicial branch nominations awaiting Senate action.

And he laid out a condition to releasing his objection: “confirmation from the administration that it will respect practice and precedent on recess appointments.”

McConnell added that he needed from the White House “assurances that have been routinely given at this point with regard to recess appointments.”

Later in the day, it became clear that McConnell’s demands were not satisfied. The Senate will now convene for 10 “pro forma” sessions over the next month, where the chamber will meet for only seconds every few days just to say it’s in session, thereby preventing recess appointments from being made. A White House spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Constitution gives presidents the authority to make such appointments during Senate breaks, a move that allows nominees to serve in their posts through the end of the following calendar year without Senate confirmation. While the Senate often scoffs at such efforts to circumvent its advise-and-consent role, presidents of both parties over the years have made controversial recess appointments.

President George W. Bush, for instance, named John Bolton in 2005 to serve as the United Nations ambassador, and Obama installed Donald Berwick last year to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Both presidents drew enormous criticism from their opponents in the Senate.

Most recently, pressure has been growing on the left for Obama to name Cordray as the head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Last week, Republicans blocked the nomination from coming to an up-or-down vote by a 53-45 tally, seven votes shy of breaking a filibuster.

The GOP said it wanted a handful of reforms to roll back the sweeping powers of the new watchdog agency, but Democrats blasted McConnell for what they believe is a GOP pattern to stymie Obama nominees in the Senate.

The Senate has reasserted its power over the nomination process in recent years — Reid routinely employed the maneuver of holding “pro forma” sessions when Bush was in power to block any recess appointments.